How could anyone hate the 90’s? Tacky, mismatched clothing, the emergence of boy bands and the age of radical toys; the 90’s also gave us quite the decade of fantastic films, if not memorable ones. “Falling Down” may not fall into the first category, but most definitely the latter.
Hence, Falling Down is a vividly memorable and electrifying experience through and through. Why? Because it’s incredibly simple and completely aware of itself, devolving itself into just plain entertaining. Sure, it doesn’t have the intricate machinations of a deliciously compelling script, nor does it have the visual flare and incredibly strong lead performances, but it certainly has tension and just enough plot to get you going.
At its core, Falling Down is about a man simply known by his trademark license plate as “D-Fens” (Michael Douglas) who gets fed up with society as a whole and starts a vengeful rampage through the city towards people who, quite simply, piss him off. His ultimate goal is to get to his estranged ex-wife’s house to see his baby daughter for her birthday. All the while, a retiring cop named Martin Pendergast (Robert Duvall) is hot on his trail at the police station, being the only person in his precinct who pieces together the chain of events.
There’s really not much to write about when it comes to this film, because as I stated before, it’s incredibly simple. What it does and wants to do, it’s almost perfect at: pleasing the crowd. You’re going to see your share of annoying, pretentious antagonists who get in D-Fens’s way, but they all get their just desserts soon enough. The heightened and almost surreal way each of these characters hateful characteristics are built up are the ultimate (and classic) formula for a great set-up and payoff connection.
Michael Douglas gives one hell of a performance and perfectly encompasses the average Joe’s personal hatred for the everyday mundane annoyances. In fact, D-Fens ends up going on his spree simply because he’s sitting in his extremely hot car in halted traffic, something that would get on anyone’s nerves (albeit not setting anyone off in the same way).
My only gripe with the film is this: 1st off, the film switches intermittently between D-Fens’s crime spree, which is infinitely exciting, and Pendergast’s precinct scenes which halt the fun action and turn the film into an unnecessary bore. In addition, there’s an emotional and sympathetic drive behind D-Fens’s actions which ultimately don’t work, mainly because the emotional climax of his workings doesn’t hit until the very end, when it’s too late to really care. Had Falling Down been more of an experiment in B-Movie formula and stuck to its over-the-top middle-class reaction story of revenge against normalcy, it would’ve succeeded. However, I feel as though Joel Schumacher tried to make this more of a rounded, complete film…which it is, but it becomes a mixed bag of feelings toward the end. You get a mild rush of sympathy, but it should’ve been built up way more (or not at all, in my opinion). As for Pendergrast’s plotline, he really only seems like a character thrown in just to complete the plot, which is really a waste because a 2-character framework would have been really interesting if it was done…well, interestingly.
And so, Falling Down is a great film to watch when you just feel like watching a film for the hell of it. It’s especially great to watch in groups or to show to fellow movie-lovers who haven’t seen it yet. I’m sure if I had seen it when I was younger, I would have loved it; unfortunately, Schumacher’s early revenge story just doesn’t hold up to the times.
6.0/10
-Kyle Shelton
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